mood and atmosphere

<p>What makes a photograph atmospheric? Yes, the lighting and the composition ... but what factors actually give a photograph a special "mood"?</p>

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<p>Your imagination.</p>

<p>Sometimes it's texture. Not just the kind of texture as in a certain type of material feeling a certain way, but as in the texture talked about in music, the "texture" of the orchestra. It's different than composition. It's the way all the elements relate to each other, foreground, background and in between, subjects and predicates, this thing playing off that thing. </p>

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<p>"...but what factors actually give a photograph a special 'mood'?"</p>

 

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<p>Can you explain what you mean by "special mood." For example, I like to take photos at 10:00am to 2:00pm because of the flat light and special mood it creates in the flat, desolate areas of West Texas and New Mexico...</p>

<p>Henry, try posting some of your own "moody" photos, or link us to some. We're visual people here, even if we do blather.</p>

<p>Sometimes it is simply color... or lack there of...</p>

<p>I'm impressed by the Ingmar Bergman "look" a Swedish inkjet printer accomplishes... similar to darkroom B&W, printed through a Softar #1 : a dark fog-like nimbus around big black areas , yet keeping fine details, such as eyes and unshaven beard, sharp. Makes both R&R band promos and evening sky scenics look a little "threatening"...nightmareish/theatrical...yet, using a Softar on-camera creates the opposite mood, "dreamy."</p>

<p>....and I don't know how this Swede does it with DSLR/inkjet, but I hope to find out :-)</p>

<p>Unfortunately I don't have a link for him...but I do have a bunch of his prints. Epson 2200 with dedicated B&W inkset.</p>

<p>I think its a combination of light, composition, lens perspective, post production treatment and of course imagination. That 'special mood' you refer to is the way everything plays together either in harmony or in chaos.</p>